Lopez v. City of New York
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-02502
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In Lopez v. City of New York, Judge Liman denied bifurcation, granted leave for a pleadings motion, and declined to stay discovery.
Carol Lopez, the City of New York, and Police Officer Anthony Saline; the ruling permits discovery concerning the municipal-liability claim to proceed without bifurcation or a pre-filing stay.
What happened
In Lopez v. City of New York, the City and Police Officer Anthony Saline asked the court to separate discovery about the City’s municipal-liability claim from other discovery. They argued that this discovery could be costly, unnecessary, and unfairly prejudicial.
The court denied the request to separate or delay the discovery. It explained that Lopez was entitled to seek relevant information about the City’s policies and practices, that individual defendants’ success would not necessarily eliminate the City’s potential liability, and that concerns about unfair evidence could be handled later during trial planning.
Judge Lewis J. Liman granted the defendants permission to file a motion for judgment on the pleadings, but refused to stay discovery before that motion is filed. The defendants may ask again for a stay when they file the motion.
The detailed version
- Lopez v. City of New York · No. 1:20-cv-02502
- Lewis Liman
- July 1, 2021
Background
The City of New York and Police Officer Anthony Saline moved to bifurcate, or separate into stages, discovery concerning Carol Lopez’s municipal-liability claim under Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York. They argued that discovery about the City’s policies and practices would be costly and potentially unnecessary. They also argued that evidence supporting the municipal-liability claim could prejudice Saline and other officers who had not yet been identified.
The defendants alternatively sought permission to file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) for judgment on the pleadings and asked the court to stay all discovery concerning the municipal-liability issue until that motion was resolved.
Legal standard
The court explained that parties ordinarily may obtain discovery of nonprivileged information relevant to their claims or defenses and proportional to the needs of the case. A court may stay or bifurcate discovery for good cause, but the party seeking that relief bears the burden of showing that it is warranted. Relevant considerations include the breadth and burden of the discovery, resulting prejudice, and the strength of any motion that would support a stay.
Court’s reasoning
The court rejected the request to separate or delay municipal-liability discovery for several reasons:
- Lopez had pleaded a municipal-liability claim, and the defendants had not yet moved to dismiss it. The court therefore could not determine at that stage that the claim lacked merit, much less that it was so clearly meritless that discovery should be barred. - A successful defense by an individual defendant would not necessarily eliminate the City’s potential liability. Municipal liability may exist even when an individual defendant is not personally liable, including because the individual may be protected by qualified immunity. - Concerns that evidence relevant to the City could prejudice individual defendants could be addressed when the court considers how to conduct the trial. - Any discovery that is burdensome or amounts to a fishing expedition can be addressed under the ordinary limits of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b), rather than through a blanket stay or bifurcation.
The court also declined to stay discovery before the defendants filed their proposed Rule 12(c) motion. It granted the defendants’ request for leave to file that motion, while allowing them to renew their request for a discovery stay in connection with the motion.
Disposition
Judge Lewis J. Liman denied the motion to bifurcate discovery. He granted the defendants leave to file a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings, denied their request to stay discovery before filing that motion, and stated that they could renew the stay request when they filed it.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.